


Inertia

by captainamergirl



Category: All My Children
Genre: Anger, Angst, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I loved them so much it hurts!, Lesbian Character, Lianca, Love, Post-Marissa, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25377391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: Bianca feels like she's lost everything. Lena can relate. A Lianca reunion story years in the making!
Relationships: Lena Kundera/Bianca Montgomery
Kudos: 2





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> Lianca were my very first same sex couple OTP, and I am so grateful I got to see Binx and Lena fall in love. I just wish they'd been endgame. They should have been!

**Preface**  
  
As she watched the bailiff carry the little piece of paper to the judge, she couldn’t help but think: _my whole future is literally resting in that man’s big hands. The future of my children; the future of my other family members; the future of the whole town of Pine Valley. If it says “not guilty” … No, don’t go there, Bianca, don’t,_ she commanded herself. _Just don’t._  
  
But it was too hard not to “go there”, especially because it seemed to take an inordinately long time for the paper to reach Judge Fitzwater’s hands and though Bianca watched the woman’s face intently, she saw nothing but the typical stoicism and even boredom the judge had manifested every day for the past month they had all sat in this sweltering courtroom. Still, Bianca studied her round face, hoping for some clue about what that paper might say but it was then slowly moving back to the bailiff. Moving like a glacier in her mind, anyway. The paper finally found its way back into the jury foreperson’s hands. Now Bianca’s future rested squarely on the shoulders of twelve people she had never even talked to before. When they were all sitting together, sequestered in a tight, cloying room, were they all thinking about just wanting to get this over with as fast as they could so they could return to their normal lives? She wondered if any stopped to consider all that had been lost ten months ago when a madman had gotten the idea in his head to take out a woman and had ended up felling her and two others in the process.  
  
Bianca openly rued the day still she had ever tried to play nice with JR Chandler.  
  
Her eyes moved to him for a moment. He had lost weight and his face was pale. If he was suffering, she was glad. She had sat in the first row every day of the trial so that he would see that while he could take away her world, smash it into a million irreparable pieces, he couldn’t scare her anymore. However, there was an expression of fear etched across his face now that told her that he was scared. As he should be.  
  
His cold blue eyes moved to hers then as if he had sensed her gaze and he just shook his head at her and then they both turned back to stare at the jury forewoman -- a petite blonde, forty-ish soccer mom type named Eugenia Banks. Bianca had memorized all of the jury members’ names the first day of the trial. She had appealed to them all, if only in her mind, to do the right thing and convict JR.  
  
 _Please, please,_ she prayed. _God, if you’re up there, make justice happen today. It won’t bring back the people we’ve lost. I know that. Lysistrata keeps drilling that into my skull but it will be what he deserves. If he gets off, he is going to take AJ and run. He may even hurt someone else. So please… Please…_  
  
Judge Fitzwater finally said the five words that would either make or break Bianca and her loved ones. “What does the jury find?”  
  
Eugenia cleared her throat and then read from the paper as Bianca held her breath.  
  
“We, the jury, find the defendant … guilty.”  
  
Pandemonium erupted in the gallery and every other section of the courtroom after each charge was read. He was found guilty on all counts. Some people cried, some people whooped in joy, some people just said nothing. Bianca just sat their shell-shocked. She felt her Uncle Jackson’s hand wrap around hers then and squeeze tightly but it failed to reach her in any way. She felt cold inside, even knowing that JR was going away for a long time. He might even get a well-deserved needle in his arm that would terminate his pathetic existence. Bianca waited for the relief to come, even the resolve, but it didn’t. She was living out her own life sentence, she realized. Without Marissa and her mom, she was living out her own version of hell.  
  
As a single tear slid down her cheek, she sat there in a state of near-catatonia. She had so much left to do today (after all, someone had to explain to AJ that his father wasn’t coming home for a long, long time) but she felt lethargic and impotent to do anything at all. Court was then adjourned. A cursing, near-hysterical JR was led out of the room in handcuffs. Life now moved on but she sat there for the longest time trying to decide how to wade through the thick, cloying feeling of inertia wrapping around her.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**  
  
Bianca sat stiffly on the lumpy sofa in Lysistrata's office. She felt the therapist watching her intently but she couldn't, in that moment, think of a thing to say. Or more accurately, she didn't trust herself to say anything because if she did, that torrent of emotions she was barely holding at bay would come flooding out. She didn't want to lose control; she couldn't afford to do so.  
  
Three weeks had passed since the trial ended. JR was apparently appealing and throwing his weight around constantly – although Bianca wasn't supposed to know that; no one wanted to burden her anymore. As if she were so fragile, that this would break her …  
  
 _Too late, it already has,_ she thought and didn't realize she had spoken aloud until Lysistrata was saying, "What already has? What do you think it's too late for?"  
  
Bianca shrugged. "Never mind …"  
  
"No, not never mind. You are paying me a pretty penny for these sessions so let's talk alright. I still get paid no matter what but you might as well get your money's worth." She ran a hand through her short, cropped, bleached blonde hair. "Come on. You've got thirty-seven minutes and twenty-four seconds to open up to me. Don't make me pull out the videos on repressed grief again."  
  
Bianca shook her head. "No, anything but those."  
  
Lysistrata nodded. "Okay. I knew blackmail would work. Now let's talk. It's been three weeks since the trial. How are you feeling? Be honest. Remember nothing you say in the confines of this office, will leave this sanctuary of ours."  
  
Bianca shook her head. "What am I supposed to feel?"  
  
"Don't tell me what you're supposed to feel. Tell me what you actually feel."  
  
"It's been nearly a year," Bianca said. "Since Marissa and my mom … died. All because of that – that –"  
  
"Jackass? Manbitch? Psycho?" Lysistrata shrugged as Bianca raised an eyebrow. "Sorry. You finish that sentence yourself."  
  
"I don't know how," Bianca said. "I hate him more than anyone – more than even the man I killed … Michael Cambias…"  
  
"Rambling is good," Lysistrata said. "Sometimes that helps you get to the root of how you're feeling, in a non-linear way…"  
  
"Ramble huh?" Bianca sighed and splayed her hands. "I don't even know where to start. All I know is that I am angry. I am really angry. But I can't be angry outwardly because then I'll scare the kids and people will worry that poor Bianca is coming apart."  
  
"You are entitled to your feelings. And if you can't express them out there in the 'real' world, you can in here. I keep something with me for just such occasions."  
  
Bianca watched, wide-eyed, as the unusual woman climbed to her feet, walked to the coat closet and extracted a plastic, toy bat. She then brought it to Bianca and held it out to her. "Use it wisely."  
  
"You want me to actually … what destroy your office with this plastic … thing?"  
  
"Sure if it helps you get some of that anger out. It's healthy. You can't hurt anyone and only I can see you. Hell, I will step out of the room and you can have a go of it by yourself. Do me a favor and take out the lamp in the corner. I never liked it but it was a gift from an old friend of mine. I didn't have the heart to tell her I hated it."  
  
Bianca shook her head. "Talk about hiding your feelings…"  
  
Lysistrata smirked. "I am going to go get us some sodas from the machine downstairs. When I come back, I want to see this room in shambles."  
  
"Lysistrata, you can't be serious!" Bianca cried out but the therapist was already slipping out the door.  
  
Bianca looked around the room as she gently tapped the plastic bat against her lean thigh. It reminded her of AJ's Little League bat. _Poor AJ._ He was so messed up about all of this. He was in counseling himself. _Damn JR for putting him in a position where he couldn't be a happy little boy like other kids his age. Damn JR to hell!_  
  
That's when she started swinging. Thinking of the way AJ had cried when he realized he had lost two parents for life, she swung out and landed a crisp smack! to the lamp in the corner. Lysistrata had better have meant it when she said Bianca could destroy this office because Bianca was going to. She had never gotten angry, truly angry, like this in her entire life and she couldn't hold it back any longer. There went the ugly lamp, crashing to the floor in a million pieces. There went the draperies, torn from the rod as she rammed them again and again. There went the clock and the papers piled up on Lysistrata's desk. When the plastic bat didn't do enough damage for her cravings, she dropped it and instead used her hands to destroy the room. She had never been this angry in her life. The room was in tatters by the time Lysistrata popped her head in.  
  
"You redecorated I see," Lysistrata said wryly.  
  
"You said –"  
  
"I am joking. I needed an excuse to rearrange some stuff. How are you feeling now?"  
  
Bianca shook her head. "I'm still so angry."  
  
"Let's go to my colleague's office and destroy some stuff in there. He's on vacation. He won't know what hit him."  
  
XoXoXo  
  
By the time Bianca was done destroying a second office, the fight had completely gone out of her and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep for the next twenty years. Lysistrata seemed to sense that and offered her couch so Bianca could take a nap but Bianca resisted. She needed to get home to the children.  
  
She thanked Lysistrata and Lysistrata just said "anytime" and then "see you next week". Bianca didn't want to come back but she knew her uncle wanted her in grief counseling and she couldn't say "no" to Jackson who was dealing with his own demons.  
  
She stopped in the bathroom on the way out and threw some cold water on her face to try to wake herself up. As she was drying her hands, she noticed her face in the mirror. She looked hallow-cheeked and sallow. There were big, dark circles under her eyes. Her mother would have been horrified. Even when Erica had had hell come down on her, she had always looked her best. But Erica wasn't here anymore. She couldn't pull Bianca up out of the trenches anymore. The so-called indomitable Erica was no more either.  
  
Bianca sighed and then tossing the moistened paper towels in the trash, she headed out and towards home.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
Bianca hated the house. Marissa and she and the kids were supposed to live in it all together but of course, Marissa was gone. Bianca wanted out of there very badly but looking for a new place seemed to take so much energy that she simply didn't have.  
  
As she pulled into the driveway, she thought how much she didn't want to be here; how much she didn't want to have to look at the barren walls that lacked pictures because Bianca couldn't bear to see them all in happier times B.H.J.R. _Before Hurricane JR._  
  
She sighed and sat in the car for a good three minutes before slowly, sluggishly, climbing out of it. She then walked towards the house and was halfway up the steps before she noticed she wasn't alone. Someone was sitting on the empty porch swing that had remained untouched until today. Her eyes widened when she saw who it was.  
  
"Hello, Bianca," Lena Kundera said in a soft voice.


End file.
